IPC In The News

A 2012 report by the IPC was recently cited in a White House fact sheet pointing out the economic need for comprehensive immigration reform:

"According to the 2010 American Community Survey, immigrants earned a total of $1.1 trillion, and the Immigration Policy Center estimates that the purchasing power of Latinos and Asians, many of whom are immigrants, alone will reach $1.5 trillion and $775 billion, respectively, by 2015."

The IPC's Senior Researcher, Walter Ewing, had this article published in Yahoo! Finance:

"The U.S. immigration system undermines the U.S. economy in many ways. Two particularly glaring (and interrelated) examples concern foreign students and high-tech workers.

Each year, foreign students graduate from U.S. universities, often with in-demand science and engineering degrees. Yet many are forced to return to their home countries rather than putting their newly acquired knowledge to work here. Likewise, each year many high-tech workers from abroad (some of whom studied in U.S. universities) are forced to return home when their temporary work visas expire, regardless of how valuable their continuing contributions to the U.S. economy might be.

Both of these scenarios are nonsensical. That is why President Obama said in his inaugural address that the nation’s work will not be complete 'until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.'"

The Director of the Immigration Policy Center, Mary Giovagnoli, was quoted in this recent Mother Jones article on Marco Rubio's immigration plan:

"Rising conservative star and tea party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is "riding to the immigration rescue," according to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. While a bipartisan group of senators is at work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal, Rubio is touting ideas of his own, which Journal editorial writer Matthew Kaminski says will seek to "triangulate, if you will—the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right's obsession with closing the door.""

Wendy Feliz-Sefsaf, Communications Director at the AIC, was quoted in this article on Politico:

"When the 113th Congress digs into immigration reform with renewed vigor in the new year, no lawmaker will find himself in quite so tight a spot as Rep. Mike Honda.

It’s a position, however, very much relished by Honda, a seven-term Democrat from the San Jose area. His district, California’s redrawn 15th, is among the nation’s most complicated on this hot-button issue — dominated by major high-tech firms focused on importing high-skilled labor as well as huge minority populations seeking paths to citizenship."

WASHINGTON -- Arizona Sen.Jon Kyl and Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison introduced legislation Tuesday to give legal status to young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

The bill by the two Southwest Republicans -- and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- would offer special student and work visas and ultimately permanent legal status to those who earn a college degree or serve four years in the military.

"We need to have a discussion that is sensible, that is calm," said Kyl, who, like Hutchison, is retiring in January. "This particular piece of immigration reform seemed a logical place to begin."

Unlike several previous "Dream Act"-style bills, it does not offer a special pathway to citizenship, a conscious omission that is likely to be opposed by immigrant rights' groups and many Democrats.

"I think this is a doubled-edged sword," said Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, which advocates for immigrants' rights. "On one hand, I think it's great that people are putting ideas out there about how to go forward on immigration. At the same time, I think it's really unfortunate that the choice is being made to put solutions out there that don't include the opportunity for people to become citizens."

IPC statistics were used in this AJC article about Christian Jimenez, one of the first immigrants in the U.S. to receive a reprieve from deportation under Obama's new immigration policy:

Nearly 1 million immigrants across the U.S. are now eligible for deferred action, according to an estimate by the Immigration Policy Center, an arm of the American Immigration Council, an immigrant rights and policy group in Washington. Of those, 24,360 live in Georgia, the eighth-largest total among states.